Stranglehold (11 page)

Greene dumped a second pile of garden waste in the bag. “She can get rid
of my bar mitzvah photos in the living room, but just don’t let her take Mom’s picture off the mantel,” he said.

In the nine weeks since Klavdiya had appeared on the scene, she’d taken to renovating every aspect of his father’s life, starting with ditching his decades-old wire-rim glasses for three new pairs from the three-for-one optical store her cousin ran on Bathurst Street. Next came new shirts and pants from her brother-in-law, a jobber down on Spadina who got everything wholesale.

Now she was starting in on his house, getting rid of the plastic geraniums in the kitchen window and the faded tablecloth in the dining room. Amazingly, she’d somehow managed to convince his dad to throw out the yellowed plastic cover on the living room sofa. For that, Greene would be eternally grateful, no matter what other havoc she ended up causing in his father’s life.

“I heard about this murder of the lawyer?” his father said. “Didn’t you do some cases with her?” He picked up a second rake from the lawn and began working beside Greene. The front yard had two trees near the house and a majestic red maple in the front, which they both liked the best. In the early fall its leaves turned bright scarlet, making the first ones to drop stand out on the lawn like scattered taillights on a near-deserted highway. Since he was a child, it had been a game between father and son to look for the most perfect one.

“We did a lot of things together,” Greene said.

“Who’s the detective on this?”

It always amazed Greene how knowledgeable his dad had become about the inner workings of the homicide squad.

“It’s Daniel Kennicott’s first case.”

His father let out a low whistle. “You helping him on this?”

“Not officially.”

“Of course.”

“I just met with him at Brian’s bakery.”

“And what? Sound like the husband probably did it?”

“That’s what we thought at first. But the man has an airtight alibi. Kennicott’s still suspicious of him, though.”

“He thinks the man hired someone to strangle his wife? Even in the camps, when someone was killed, it was never by hand. Always with a knife, or a brick.”

“I know. It’s hard to strangle someone to death. It’s a very angry crime.” Greene picked out a pristine, dark red leaf from the pile and handed it over.

“A good one,” his father said, twirling the leaf by its stem. “And the man she was meeting in that motel?”

Greene pulled a second leaf from the pile. One of its corners was bent. He tossed it back.

His father examined the leaf in his hand, not saying anything. Greene knew him well enough to know that something was up.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Brian’s bread. Don’t bring me so much.” His dad shrugged, and pointed the leaf toward his front door. “She eats gluten-free bread. I’ve even started.”

Greene laughed. “She got you eating quinoa salad yet?”

“No. But porridge. First time I’ve eaten it since the Russians liberated us. An old Polish lady, wouldn’t let me eat meat for three days. Only Cream of Wheat. Saved me. Some of my friends ate so much their stomachs exploded.”

It was a story Greene had heard many times. His father, weighing seventy-three pounds, walking the streets alone and ragged, taken in by a woman who fed and bathed him.

“Okay, Dad. No more bagels. No more challah.”

“Well, challah on Fridays.”

Greene closed up his bag of leaves. “Don’t let her move in yet.”

“I might. I might not.”

“Don’t,” Greene said with force. “Not now.”

His father heard the tone in Greene’s voice. He’d survived enough danger in his life to smell it miles away. He looked Ari in the eye, passed him back the perfect red leaf, picked up his rake, and started working. “What is it?” he asked.

Greene had checked out Klavdiya on the police database. She had a dated criminal record filled with fraud convictions, mostly bounced cheques. Her ex-husband was more of a problem. He was in jail for five years on an extortion charge and was getting out in a few months. There had been no need to tell his father about any of this. Until now.

“Klavdiya has a criminal record,” Greene said. “If I get arrested, the only chance I’ll have of getting bail is if I can stay with you. She can’t be here.”

For a near-imperceptible moment, the rake in his father’s hand stopped moving. Then he kept going. He was a man who knew how to take a blow and not show it.

“Did you love her?” he asked at last.

“More, I think, than I knew.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Just a lawyer,” Greene said. “You remember Ted DiPaulo?”

“Not Kennicott?”

“I tried to tell Kennicott this afternoon,” he said. “But he’d have to make me a witness. I’d be off the case. I need to find out who killed her.”

“How much time do you have?”

“I don’t know. Kennicott’s smart. He’s going to figure this out very soon.”

“That’s how much you loved her. That you are taking such a risk.”

It wasn’t a question, Greene realized. But a statement of fact.

“You know I hate the Poles,” his father said. “But their vodka is the best. They make it with potatoes. You’ll take a bottle for tonight.”

There was a rattling sound at the front of the house. Greene looked up and saw Klavdiya struggling with the old screen door, the same one he had run in and out of since he was a little boy. At last she got it open.

“Stupid.” She slammed it shut behind her. “Yitzee, we need to get rid of this.”

We
, Greene thought.

His father shrugged.

She strode across the porch and glared down at them. One of her high heels caught on the concrete steps and she grabbed the black railing to steady herself. “These stairs have to go too. They’re awful.”

“Don’t worry, Ari, there’s more to life than good tits,” Greene’s father hissed under his breath. He passed his rake to Greene and raised his voice to Klavdiya.

“They’re my steps,” he said. “I like them.”

“TWO ORDERS OF PAD THAI,” DETECTIVE ALPINE SAID AS HE CAME INTO THE LITTLE VIDEO
room where Kennicott had been setting up the DVD player. “Chicken with yours. Mine’s with shrimp.”

“Thanks,” Kennicott said, without looking up. His eyes were glued to the monitor in front of him that had just come to life. “I got this working.”

Alpine looked over his shoulder.

Kennicott hadn’t thought he was hungry, but as soon as he smelled the food he realized he was starving. His stomach started to churn.

One of Alpine’s men had found that the Coffee Time doughnut shop two blocks west of the Maple Leaf Motel had four cameras. He’d seized the DVDs.

Kennicott pushed play on the remote. Four videos came on at the same time, each taking up a quarter of the screen. Camera One showed the entrance to the doughnut shop and the sidewalk and street beyond heading east. The other three cameras covered different locations inside. The counter on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen read 9:49:52. The images were jerky, like a cheap cartoon.

“There she is,” Alpine said.

He pointed to Camera One. Clear as day, there was Jennifer Raglan dressed in running gear, walking toward the front door and moving quickly inside. Camera Three caught her heading straight for the washroom, as if she knew where it was. She wore the Lululemon sweatpants and Roots T-shirt they’d found under the bed in the motel room.

Kennicott took the carton of food, grabbed the chopsticks that were sticking out of the noodles, and started eating.

They watched in silence.

There were no cameras in the washroom. The time clicked by, one minute, two minutes. He tore through the noodles. Alpine had asked him if he wanted some soup as well. He’d said no, and now he regretted it.

“You get the feeling this wasn’t her first time doing this.” Alpine pulled out his notebook. “No one at Coffee Time remembered seeing her. Not surprising. You can see how crowded the place is. We checked every motel on the strip. Found five other owners who remembered a woman with red hair and sunglasses. They all said the same thing. She’d called them the week before, asked for room 8. Paid cash each time. Always for a Monday-morning rental.”

“Got her on video at any of them?”

“No. None of them have cameras. She must have scouted them out, because most of the have-a-naps out there have them.”

Kennicott dug out the last bit of noodles from the corner of the carton and pointed to the screen with his chopsticks. “She forgot about the cameras at the Coffee Time,” he said. It had been three minutes now, and she still had not come out of the bathroom.

“The husband’s alibi is solid?” Alpine asked.

“As a rock.” Kennicott opened his notebook. “We’ve got him on CCTV at the Queen subway station at 8:23. Exactly what he told me. He said he rode around to Eglinton West and we have him getting off there at 8:45. The camera at Randy’s Roti shop picks him up at 9:38, and Louisa, the woman who works there, remembers the white guy in a suit and tie who thought her beef patties were too spicy to eat for breakfast. We showed her his picture and she said it was probably him but white guys in suits mostly looked the same to her. He hangs around for a while and chats with people. Looks like he’s enjoying himself. Leaves at 10:06.”

“Guy was making sure we could trace his alibi,” Alpine said.

“Perhaps.” Kennicott crushed the carton and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner.

Alpine reached into the plastic bag that he’d brought the food in and pulled out a bowl of soup. Then he brought out a second one. “You said you didn’t want soup, but I knew you’d be hungry.”

“Thanks.” Kennicott could smell the fresh coriander and it made his mouth water. “The rest of his day is just as Darnell told me. We got him on the bus down to St. Clair, the streetcar across, and the librarian at the Deer Park Library, Anna Tharyan, remembered him being in that day. Says he comes in a few afternoons a week and reads magazines.”

Up on the monitor, at 9:55:45, almost six minutes after Raglan had gone into the washroom, a woman of the same height came out wearing casual shoes
and a nondescript blue dress. Her hair was red – the same colour as Raglan’s wig – and she wore the same wraparound sunglasses they’d found in room 8. She carried a backpack. Same as the one in the motel room.

“She was determined that no would recognize her,” Alpine said. “No doubt about that.”

She walked over to the far wall, her back to Camera Two, and stopped. There was a long line up at the counter and the people obstructed the view. Only the top of her head was visible when someone shorter passed by.

“What’s she up to?” Alpine asked.

“Don’t know,” Kennicott said. He stared at the grainy images as they went by.

“Here, you can expand it.” Kennicott touched a button on the remote and the image took over the whole screen. The resolution was even grainier, but it was easier to see what was going on.

“Shit,” Alpine said. “The people are in the way.”

“Wait, there’s a little boy coming up in line,” Kennicott said. The kid moved forward and they caught a glimpse of Raglan. She had finished whatever she was doing, and walked off the screen toward the door.

“Damn,” Alpine said.

“Wait, I saw something.” Kennicott reduced the image and hit reverse until he got to the point where the boy in line was in front of her. He pressed another button and the images advanced frame by frame. “I saw something.”

Like a badly animated cartoon, everyone moved in herky-jerky slow motion. The boy came in front of Raglan and for a moment they could see her. She turned from the wall just before a taller woman took the boy’s place in line. Raglan moved toward the door and disappeared.

“Nothing,” Alpine said.

“Wait.” Kennicott reversed the video again until the moment Raglan moved away. He expanded the image to full screen.

“Look,” he yelled, pointing at the wall. “Look.”

“What?” Alpine asked.

“A pay phone. She was calling someone.”

Alpine whistled. “She had her cell, but that could be traced.”

“Who was she calling and why?” Kennicott asked.

“Has to be Mr. Monday Morning,” Alpine said. “We can’t trace a call from a pay phone. Ask any pimp or drug dealer. But if we find this guy, let’s hope she called on his cell. Then we can match it to this call in a heartbeat.”

The video went off pause automatically and started on its own again.

Camera One caught her outside again, walking quickly, swinging her backpack back and forth. Kennicott imagined Raglan smiling. Happy. The camera tracked her for quite a distance. There was no one else on the narrow sidewalk.

Greene had taught him that as a homicide detective, you formed an intimate relationship with the deceased. You learned everything you could about her. Came to know and care for her. Kennicott was no longer a lawyer, but in many ways she was his client.

“I’ve seen enough,” Alpine said.

Kennicott felt the same.

Before he switched off the screen, he took one final look at the last live images of Jennifer Raglan as she headed unknowingly toward her terrible fate.

“HELLO. IT’S ALLIE HERE. MUMMY TOLD ME TO TELL ANYONE WHO CALLED THAT WE ARE AWAY
on holiday,”
a young girl with a British accent said on the answering machine that had just picked up.
“Please do leave us a message at the beep. Bye-bye.”

Greene felt like an idiot. He also felt drunk. And stoned. And both at the same damn time.

The seconds ticked away in silence as he held the phone. He’d figured that one in the morning was seven o’clock in England. Or maybe six, he could never remember when it was five and when it was six hours’ difference.

The silence on the line seemed overwhelming.

“Hello, Allie,” he said at last, working very hard not to slur his words. “Tell your mommy that her old friend Ari just phoned from Canada.”

He sounded so. So what? Stupid? Pathetic? Stoned and drunk?

“Beep,”
the machine said.

Damn, he’d forgotten to wait for it. Just hang up, he told himself.